In the 1960’s, American parapsychologist Jose Silva was determined to demonstrate that psychic skills could be taught to willing adults–and children. Author Suzanne Clores (Memoirs of a Spiritual Outsider) tells of her experience in the Silva Mind Control summer camp as a nine-year-old in 1980, and how early exposure to the idea of self-improvement via super powers links to the rhetoric of American exceptionalism. Clores also will introduce her newest endeavor, The Extraordinary Project, a web-based repository of real life instances of exceptional human experience, as an antidote to the quest for super powers, and a route to conversation about inherent extraordinary capabilities.

Chicago's first Extraordinary Party doubles as social art experiment based on current theories of intuition and telepathy. A screening of The Extraordinary Project's most recent stories will follow, as well as the opportunity for attendees to record their own extraordinary stories in a private video room.

Part relational performance, part recording session, the New York Extraordinary Party is the official launch and celebration of The Extraordinary Project. Attendees are invited to take part in a social art experiment based on the innovative findings of biologist and parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, while waiting to contribute their own extraordinary stories in a private video room.

This is a story about coincidence. Not the kind of coincidence like when you decide you need a whole new sock wardrobe and then happen to find socks on sale at Target the very next day. Not that kind of coincidence. I'm talking about the ones that feel different, that shake you. The ones that make you choose and act differently, and redirect how you live your life. This story is about how I chose to trust in such a coincidence, even though it involved me getting into a car with a self-admitted Brookyln Wise Guy with whom I had no prior connection. Even though it required I risk my life for 30 minutes, and I wasn't totally sure it would be worth it. But I was almost sure it was worth it. And you know what? It was.

Suzanne Clores

Author and Founder of The Extraordinary Project, an online collection of our most unusual human experience

The official website for the memoir, fiction and documentary projects by author Suzanne Clores. Clores writes about identity and spiritual life, and founded The Extraordinary Project, a public archive of video and written stories about the odd and confounding incidents that happen to us and influence our lives. It is the only anecdotal forum of its kind.